Sky’s the IT limit for Scots
By Ian Fraser
Published: The Sunday Times
Date: September 27th, 2009
With abundant sources of renewable energy and good communications infrastructure, country must invest in ‘cloud computing’
Scotland ought to be getting into the business of cloud creation — and this has nothing to with Cold War manipulation of the weather, or those fantastical rainbow-painting cloud-men in Roald Dahl’s novel James and the Giant Peach.
Cloud-computing may sound airy-fairy but it is already happening and is likely to transform how businesses of all sizes approach information technology. And it should enable them to deploy their IT budgets more effectively.
David Mitchell, senior vice-president at the IT research consultancy Ovum, predicts that instead of being “server huggers” — owning their own servers and keeping these in-house, with the corollary that they must buy and update their own software — businesses will increasingly farm out such activities to third parties.
These “cloud-computing” providers will rent out data storage space on servers housed in vast air-conditioned, disaster-proof data centres. But they will also provide access to software services.
“There are parallels with businesses’ attitude towards electricity 100 years ago,” said Mitchell. “At that time companies didn’t trust the national grid and so everybody wanted to have their own generator.”
Cloud-computing will be discussed at 10 Big Things, a conference to be held on October 8 and run by Scotland IS, a trade body representing the country’s information and communication technology industry. Companies already building a presence in the data centre and cloud-computing markets include Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Salesforce.com. Mitchell wants the Scottish government and its enterprise agency, Scottish Development International, to do more to persuade these companies to locate data farms in Scotland — and make it the cloud-computing capital of Europe.
Scotland’s advantages over some “hot desert in the US” include its “relatively cool climate, abundant sources of renewable energy and good communications infrastructure”, he said. “If the deck of cards falls the right way, this could be very good news for the Scottish economy, creating a virtuous investment cycle.”
If global players could be persuaded to create data centres in Scotland — there are already two competing proposals to build “data farms” near Lockerbie in Dumfries and Galloway — it would aid Scottish business and provide a springboard for local computing companies and software developers, argues Mitchell.
Global demand for data services is growing at an estimated 15% a year, with 88% of current data centres expected to be full by next year. “This is going to be a $40-$50 billion market by 2015, of which the UK share is likely to be $4 billion-$5 billion,” Mitchell said.
Kelly Dempski, a director at Accenture’s research labs in Sophia Antipolis, southern France, will also speak at the conference. He said: “A lot of chief information officers spend most of their time worrying about infrastructure and keeping their companies’ servers up and running. Were they to switch over to the cloud-computing model, somebody else would take care of that.”
The rival firms seeking to develop data farms in Dumfries and Galloway are Lockerbie Data Centres and Internet Villages International (IVI). Earlier this month it was reported that APC by Schneider had formed a strategic alliance with IVI to develop scaleable, modular data centres, including one in Ecclefechan. However, the plans have been muddied by a complex wrangle between Lockerbie and IVI.
A government spokesman would not comment on specifics but said that Scotland had “real potential as an international base for data centres”.
10 Big Things Global Forum is held at the Sheraton Grand Hotel, Edinburgh, on Thursday, October 8. Tickets are £35 for members of Scotland IS and £50 for non-members. Email karen.meechan@scotlandis.com or telephone 01506 472200
This article was published in The Sunday Times on September 27th 2009. To view on Times Online click here
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